Can Reform Help This Kind of Health Care?

I just a chilling article about two nurses in West Texas who anonymously reported to the Texas Medical Board a doctor in their hospital who was peddling his own herbal remedies to patients as well as neglecting his official duties and, basically, practicing bad medicine.

Seems the Good Doc, however, was in cahoots with the local sheriff in the herbal remedy racket. Said sheriff then swooped in, seized computers, found the nurses, charged them with crimes, got them fired, and now they're out on $5,000 baiil awaiting trial.

Herbal remedy sales are still booming throughout the ordeal, evidently.

However sad this sordid little tale is, what is even more shocking is how widespread deliberate malpractice is. Chew over this tidbit:

Medical professionals, especially nurses who are generally lower on the food chain, so to speak, are increasingly reticent to speak out when they see unsound, unethical or corrupt things going on in healthcare. It is hard to do the right thing. They know and see the consequences of following their consciences and the Code of Ethics. This is not an isolated incident. Three California nurses were suspended after they reported a doctor who later admitted giving a lethal injection to a child and another nurse was threatened with firing after refusing to follow a doctor’s verbal order to administer morphine until a patient stopped breathing.

When our health care system fires people who want to do good and right while it protects the evil-doing doctors, then we clearly need more than health care reform. We need to stay healthy enough so that we never have to go to a hospital. Here's to dying like Bing Crosby--falling over dead while playing golf on a course in Spain.

Joe Wilson to Arlen Specter: 'You Lie'

The specter of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is haunting newly minted Democratic Senator Arlen Specter so much that he's turned to making things up evidently.

At the AFL-CIO Convention this week in Pittsburgh, the former Republican maverick, who is now being threatened with extinction in the Democratic party by labor leaders if he doesn't support EFCA, announced that he had the 60 votes necessary to pass a revised EFCA.

However, no one else in the Senate appears to know of the deal, which Specter said would involve five-day elections instead of card check and "baseball" arbitration instead of open-ended arbitration (baseball arb empowers an arbitrator solely to choose either the "last best" contract offer from labor or the one from management).

Senate leader Harry Reid says he knows of no deal and furthermore thinks card check must be part of the final bill.

Best bet is that Specter is scared to death of Pennsylvania union activists siding with his Democratic challenger in the upcoming primary and of Big Labor sending millions to his opponent lest Specter deliver on EFCA.

Republic Windows Owner Jailed, Charges Filed

Richard Gillman, former owner of Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, is in jail facing a whopping $10 million bail bond after being arrested and charged with fraud, money laundering, felony theft and other crimes.

You'll remember Gillman from when he abruptly shut the doors on Republic and moved his operations to Iowa. However, his displaced workers refused to leave the premises until Gillman finally paid them two months' severance pay.

Turns out that, after moving to Iowa and taking ten truckloads of equipment (felony theft charges) from his Chicago plant with him, Gillman defaulted on the mortgage (fraud charges) to his new site and also screwed creditors out of payment (part of the money-laundering charges).

The guy would've been better off taking all that dough and relocating to Brazil back when the Republic closing story broke.

This is one story where the union was right all along, and consequently a union spokesman was quick to lump every other boss and business owner in America into the same class as Gillman:

"We feel like justice has finally come and we all hope that this is the beginning of more bosses being held accountable for their crimes against workers", said Melvin Maclin, vice-president of UE Local 1110 and a former Republic Windows and Doors worker.

Stand up and be counted, you scumbags. It's off with your heads!

Union Boss Admits Coercing Union Activism

Maybe "buying" would be a better term, but the proverbial cat is out of the bag thanks to a piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

You're probably familiar with those huge rallies by union folk in support of this or that (liberal and far-left) political cause that then show up on your (liberal and far-left) TV news shows that night.

Impressive, huh? Except that the participating union members are often forced into attending, and if not coerced, then induced with visions of sugar-plum fairies and the other good stuff in life like lavish pensions and overtime pay for not working.

James A. Williams, president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades in Philadelphia, has a telling tactic. He reduces union dues on unemployed members (which, of course, brings up a couple of questions--why do they have to pay dues when they're not working, and why isn't the union finding them jobs?) to a buck a month and forgives the rest--provided they render political activity support.

As the Prez explains:

So instead of having the big drop in membership, this way here, we utilize them for political events, we can keep them informed on various things and still keep them as active members.

And we can expect unions to play fair if they can organize a plant with card check?

Sure, about as much as you can trust a fox with your hens.

A Switch in Time Saved Now, and Now This....

There's a famous saying about how "a switch in time saved nine" Supreme Court justices under FDR, who was threatening to pack the court unless it quit ruling his laws unconstitutional. When one judge switched to the liberals' side, it was just in time to save all of them.

Now, for all of us who consider the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) evil incarnate, it was an ill senator who saved the nation from the twin terrors of card check unionization and forced contract arbitration.

One of the EFCA's sponsors, Senator Tom Harkin (D.-Iowa), has revealed he had a deal in place in July to pass EFCA--with labor leaders set to descend on the capital to celebrate--when all he needed was just one more vote to reach the 60-vote cloture threshold. That vote belonged to the late Ted Kennedy, but when Harkin inquired of Kennedy's doctor if the senator could spend just three days in Washington, D.C., the answer was no; he's too ill.

Harkin wouldn't reveal what was in the deal:

"I will not say [what was in the bill] because it was closely held, it never leaked out and it still hasn't," Harkin said. "I took it off the front-burner and put it on the back-burner so it is still on warm, OK?"

No Surprise in This Lilly Ledbetter Endorsement

I came across an obscure news item in the Web site for Alabama TV station WHNT, which announced that Lilly Ledbetter--she of the eponymous Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act--had endorsed Democrat Artur Davis for governor of her home state of Alabama.

The last line of the brief article pretty much summed up Ledbetter's rationale--and gave me a good chuckle at the same time: "Davis was the only Alabama congressman who voted for the Ledbetter act."

HR 3200 in One Illustration and One Page

If you can figure out this illustration, you're a better man than I am, Gungha Din. However, it gives you a pretty good idea of what a monstrosity the House health reform measure (HR 3200) is.

Also, here's a rundown of some of the salient features of the legislation, ranging from home visitations to governmental access to your bank account for payment!